Generations

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Quite interesting. I disagree with the conclusion (more on that in a moment), but (a) this is a great thing to investigate with the data; (b) as soon as I saw the time-series data, I immediately wanted to plot it on the 2-axis / 4-quadrant Nolan chart ... and that's exactly what the author did next! Now, why I'm not convinced that the data actually shows what the author thinks it shows: there are two possible explanations of the data: 1) that people change their views over time 2) that views are a function of when you were born The author accepts point 1 without even thinking about point 2. Two examples: 1) data shows that the older you are, the more your joints hurt. 2) data shows that the older you are, the more you disapprove of homosexuality. I assert that fact #1 is explained by "old age leads to creaky joints", and fact #2 is explai…

Us 13ers are firmly in control now! Watch out boomers and boomer babies! http://www.amazon.com/Generations-History-Americas-Future-15... "Far more than other generations, 13ers feel that the real world is gearing up to punish them down the road… Elders find it hard to suppress feelings of disappointment over how they are turning out—dismissing them as a 'lost', 'ruined', even 'wasted' generation…" "Thirteeners find these criticisms overblown. They look upon themselves as pragmatic, quick, sharp-eyed, able to step outside themselves to understand the game of life as it really get played. And whatever they are, 13ers insist, they have to be.…" "Thirteeners, not Boomers, were America's true 'children of the 1960s,' and especially, the 1970s. An awakening era that seemed euphoric to young adults was, to them, a nightmare of self-immersed pare…

…inds me of Ron Suskind's "Without a Doubt", on the "faith-based" presidency of George W. Bush. I think the Strauss and Howe model of cyclical history (see: Generations , The Fourth Turning ) is fairly accurate. Third Turnings are characterized by confusion, socioeconomic stagnation/reversion, and rampant inequality; Fourth Turnings, by crisis, hardship and rapid social evolution. The last 3T was approximately 1914-1928, with a 4T from 1929-1946. We crossed the 3T/4T interface again some time during the Bush presidency. Do I think that the recent spell of inequality fortells a second Great Depression? Not necessarily. On the other hand, it was obvious even in 1995 that something was going to break in American society, and that we had to have a crisis in order to muster the will to move forward. The crisis came about 10 years earlier than I…

In Strauss and Howe's book Generations (I highly recommend reading it, if not visiting this Wiki explanation on their theories of social cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_ (book)), they say very simply that whatever Generation you believe is yours, is yours. That is, if you were born in 1981 and felt that Nirvana and Reality Bites and Microserfs were items that you feel define you and your peers, then you are Gen X. If you were born in 1981 and are/were more interested in Hanson/Britney and Varsity Blues and not reading books (I keed!), then you are a Millenial (Gen Y). I was born in 1977, an unrepentant Gen Xer. I think most of the comments here support this general self-assessment. (God knows that anyone in Gen X was all-too aware of the fact.) P.S. Obama, born in 1961, is on the X/Baby Boomer cusp. But given his single-p…